


Reverie

by codeandcreativity



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 01:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30031188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codeandcreativity/pseuds/codeandcreativity
Summary: Spencer and Maeve visit the Folger Shakespeare Museum.
Relationships: Maeve Donovan & Spencer Reid, Maeve Donovan/Spencer Reid
Kudos: 8





	Reverie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for railmereid's 2K writing challenge on tumblr. Prompt: "Do you think we could pretend?" Thank you to SSA_SarahSunshine for her support!
> 
> TW: Allusion to stalking.
> 
> References: No explicit spoilers, this won't make sense if you're not familiar with the beginning of the Maeve arc (Season 8). Characters ad lib a few lines from Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" in the early paragraphs (…a rare vision… / Take pains. Be perfect.).
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: codeandcreativity

_Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,_

_Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend_

_More than cool reason ever comprehends._

-William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

" **Do you think we could pretend?** " she asks softly. 

"Pretend?"

"That we're together."

He looks up, past the scratched and dirty fiberglass casing of the phone booth, down one of hundreds of similarly featured streets from which he might have called her. "How?"

"Your mind is an amazing tool, Spencer. Convince me," she says with a gossamer laugh. "Tell us both a vivid lie."

"A rare vision?" he suggests, warming to the idea.

"Take pains," she says. "Be perfect."

"OK." He slips his hand into his pocket to pull out his own phone. "I'm going to hang up and call you on my cell."

"That sounds like a great start."

He settles the heavy pay phone receiver in its cradle with a satisfying _thunk_ and hits the first speed dial on his cell.

"Hey," she answers right away.

"Hey." He smiles to himself. "You're still there."

"I'm still here."

"Great." He exits the phone booth and walks towards his car, three doors down in front of a coin-operated laundry. "I'm parked outside of Georgetown Laundry," he says, unlocking the door of his horizon blue 1965 Volvo Amazon and sliding behind the wheel.

"I'm right around the corner," she says, voice light with mirth. "Come pick me up."

He follows those welcome instructions, turning the corner at a lazy crawl just in time to see her emerge from the door of her brownstone. Her face is hidden from him by a curtain of rich brown hair as she turns to lock the door behind her. Her figure is mostly hidden, too, beneath a loose white sun dress that falls just past her knees and a gray cardigan that is at least one size too large. She turns at last, her eyes shaded by sunglasses but her smile bright and genuine. She trots down the steps to street level, waving cheerfully as she crosses the sidewalk to his car. 

He's out of the car before he knows it, rushing to meet her on the sidewalk. He holds out his hand and says breathlessly, "Maeve."

"I think we're a little past that, Spencer," she says warmly, ignoring his proffered hand and wrapping her arms around him in an embrace that feels like early summer. She smells of cotton and lilac, light and sweet. Without a thought, he buries his face in her shoulder and wraps his arms around her tightly, as if she will float away, an ephemeral thing he must cling to if he is to have any chance of keeping it at all.

"You're really here," he murmurs against her skin. She shivers. He wants to make her do it again, so he says, "Maeve."

She laughs, her hands dancing the length of his spine. "I'm here. Now," she says as she pulls back just enough to see his face. "Where should we go?"

He breathes deeply, soaking in the warm summer air and the tethered feeling of her finally standing beside him. "Where do you want to go?"

She pushes her sunglasses up to reveal pale blue eyes, crinkling with excitement. "Where do you want to take me, Spencer?"

He barely has to think, when she says it like that. "I know a place." He pulls open the passenger side door and offers her his hand again. "Get in."

This time, she takes it, her skin cool and dry against his as she lowers herself into the car. "I should have known you'd drive something with character," she says as he climbs in the driver's side, running her fingers along the vintage console.

"I don't drive it much," he admits, pulling away from the curb and pointing towards their destination.

"I know," she says. "I'm glad you drove it today."

He turns his head for just a second to appreciate the childlike wonder on her face. "Me, too."

"Can I roll down the window?" she asks.

"Of course."

She works the crank until the window is as far down as it'll go, turning her face to the breeze. "I haven't been out of my apartment in so long," she says wistfully.

After a beat, he answers, "I know."

She turns back to him with a reassuring smile. "I can't wait to see where you're taking me."

They drive through tree-lined streets to the historic part of town, calling out landmarks well-known and esoteric, until finally he pulls over and puts the car in park. "I think we're here," he says, squinting through the windshield.

"You think?" she asks playfully.

He chuckles. "Yeah. We're here."

Before them rises a long two-story building with a facade of white Georgia marble, worn by more than 80 years of east coast weather but no less stunning for its age. Tall vertical windows line length of the building, art deco grilles adorning those and the entryway closer to the ground. A series of themed bas-reliefs pose under the windows, figures of stone so well-hewn they seem to not to have been carved from the marble, but to have emerged from it.

"Oh, I haven't been here in ages," she says, hand in his as she leads him up the stairs. Her fingertips hover over the figures, but she doesn't touch. Hers won't be among the hands that slowly erase the figures from the stone from which they were birthed. All the best tragedies already constructed, in word and stone, from _Macbeth_ to _Hamlet_ to _Romeo and Juliet_ , those stupid, star-crossed lovers.

"This sort of artwork is usually installed near the top of the building," he says, watching her face flush with happiness as she traverses the path towards the doors. "The Folgers asked the sculptor to place them closer to street level to give the public a better view."

She pauses a moment in front of crowned Titania, dwarfed by an attentive Bottom, idiots in love. The Fairy Queen's face is turned out, in soliloquy or reverie. Titania's body occupies the same space as her lover's, but her mind is far afield. What a privilege.

She hums appreciatively. "Is there a show today?" she says, turning her hopeful face to his.

He smiles. "What would you like to see?"

"Surprise me!" she says with a grin.

They tour the library until the sun sets, gasping softly at the details of the collection on exhibit in the Great Hall. They admire the finer points of the room itself, with its soaring plaster strapwork ceiling and intricate terracotta floor, inscribed with the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, secreting in its tiles the titles of the Bard's plays. They hover as close to the First Folio as they're permitted.

Their hands never part.

They take in the Elizabethan Theatre, with its three-tiered balconies and carved oak columns, but that's not where either of them want to spend their evening, so he takes her at last out to the garden. And for all the things they've seen today, it's the sight of the formal garden, the smell of lavender and honeysuckle and thyme that pulls the breath from her lungs and she says, "Oh, Spencer."

Palms pressed together, he pulls her closer to his side. He bends his head and whispers, "There's more." 

They traverse the garden slowly; she pauses often, to touch an unfurled leaf or inhale the scent of a flower rising brilliantly from the heavily mulched earth. While she drinks in their surroundings, he only has eyes for her. Her dark hair, blunt bangs playful over clear blue eyes, the pretty pink of her cheeks when she catches him looking, the sly curl of her lips that tells him she knows she's got him wrapped around her any way she desires. She has only to say the word.

"They're setting up for the show," he says, pointing down the path with his free hand.

She looks up at him, so pure and full of hope. " _A Midsummer Night's Dream_?"

"I can't imagine anything else," he says honestly.

She laughs, soft like a blanket. "I imagine we have our choice of seats."

They do, and when they're settled on a blanket the color of a late summer sunset, she leans over and whispers in his ear, "I brought us something to drink."

"I don't…"

"I know," she interrupts. "It's sparkling apple cider."

Night falls around them and the lights come up. The players on the stage dance and sing through the text seamlessly, interlacing the stories of lovers and actors, tales of fairies and humans, crises of self and burgeoning feminism that make A Midsummer Night's Dream one of Shakespeare's most widely performed works. 

As the play proceeds, they turn towards one another, until they are reclining, somehow watching the stage as well as the stars above. Puck makes their appeal to the audience at last, an assurance to the perturbed that what they have witnessed may be nothing more than a dream, to be whisked away by another sleep. There is no applause as Puck sees themself out, only the lingering silence of a theater long after the audience has gone.

They are the players now, alone on the stage.

"Maeve," he says softly, just for her. "Can I kiss you?"

"I think you should," she says, and before he can make a move, she presses her lips to his. Stunned, he reacts only after a moment, his fingers threading into her hair as he pulls her closer. He follows her lead, afraid of taking this ephemeral thing they've made too far. The kisses are passionate but chaste, not that he knows any other way.

Too soon, he feels her stiffen against him. "Spencer."

"What's wrong?" he asks, looking down at her face. The tone of her voice has painted her features ashen. She's only a shade now. A phantom. 

He hears a series of beeps, a staccato succession of three.

"I… I have call waiting," she says, her voice truncated with fear. 

"Maeve?"

"No one has this number."

"It's OK. Don't hang up. I can get someone to trace it," he tries to reassure her, but the terror in her voice has infected him.

"Spencer, I have to go."

Before he can say anything…

"Goodbye."

"I love you."

"I'm sorry."

"How will I know you're OK?"

…she's gone.

He's standing in a phone booth three doors down from Georgetown Laundry, listening to a dial tone.


End file.
